Some of my internet favs are webcam sites–not so much the ones that show people and their lives, but the ones of places around the globe. I remember the first time seeing Antartica via webcam and a strange one just focused on some doorway in Barcelona. I love how these cheap (or not so cheap) little cameras can take you half a world away. Maybe the view is not always clear nor so interesting, but that can be part of the fun too.

Probably many people are aware of them but there is a whole set of traffic webcams for Houston and a wide region around the city. There are so many of them that you can check out the traffic and sometimes the surrounding views from your on-ramp to your off-ramp. They not only show many of the exits on all the major freeways, but many intersections on some of Houston’s busiest streets. There are even Transtar cameras more than a hundred miles out of the city. Check out this intersection in downtown Giddings, Texas (about 100 miles northwest of Houston on the way to Austing), or look at the snow still on the ground still on the ground today (12/11/08) near Anahuac (50 miles east of Houston).

After you click on either of these, you can choose other camera locations all over the city of Houston and a large region of Texas.

The Houston TranStar site itself is full of all kinds of information about roads, weather, and transits (like the Houston Metro) for the greater Houston area. If you’re a Houston driver, coming through Houston, or just want to know more about Houston, it’s an excellent site to check out.

If you want to see the locations of the intersections where the cams catch you for running a red light, check out this map, which shows you the more than 50 redlight cams used by the Houston Police Department.